Sunday, May 25, 2014

As I have mentioned, The Best Man and I did a "quick" 3 week trip to Europe. We went to London, Paris, Barcelona, Salzburg and Munich.

Many people have asked us to pick just one favorite city. I can't do it. I can narrow it down to 3, but that's cheating, isn't it? My top three would be Paris, Salzburg and Barcelona. I loved the art and pastries in Paris (and probably would have loved the wine had it been more reasonably priced for me to try the good stuff). I love, LOVE, L.O.V.E. The Sound of Music and thus loved our short stay in Salzburg. We did a bike tour and got to see over 20 of the sites from the movie. The food was also fabulous. And finally, Barcelona. Ah. The food, the culture, the architecture. I loved it all. While there we took a train down to Sitges, a beach city south of Barcelona. In the future, I would love to stay there and enjoy the beach and food.

We just started our "long drive back to Virginia" last week. We will be going to around a dozen national parks. So far, we have explored Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. We did a one night trip into the backcountry in Sequoia. The only time I have backpacked was our Grand Canyon REI trip with Tod and Tom in 2012. The logistics were crazy, especially, never having done it on our own before. The hike up to Twin Lakes took about 5 hours with about 3,000 ft of elevation gain. Part way up, we started seeing patches of snow. Thankfully, we knew there would be some snow up and had packed several extra layers. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would camp in the snow. What an experience!

I will try to post more as we continue on this trip, however internet is hard to come by up here in the mountains.

We are currently staying at at KOA just south of Yosemite and will head into the park tomorrow. Then its off to the San Francisco area (hello, wine country!) at the end of the week.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day!

Edit: I will try to post pictures when I have a faster internet connection.

Got home a week and a half ago from a whirlwind trip in Europe (5 countries in 3 weeks) and was finally able to finish trying all the complimentary Mary Kay products I received from Influenster the day I left for the trip.

The two products I took with me on the trip where the cream eye shadow in apricot twist and the lip gloss in mango tango. I wore the eyeshadow almost every day. The color is perfect for summer and can easily transition into fall. The same goes for the lip color.

I was hesitant about the gel eyeliner as I am not that great with applying regular eye liner. It was very easy to use with the applicator brush included. I normally do not go with black eyeliner (I use a gray or dark brown instead), so I was surprised to find I liked the jet black. The mascara looked great with only 1-2 coats, however took longer than any other mascara I have used to dry. This left my lids speckled with mascara after one blink.

The translucent powder would work well to set a foundation. Using it alone did not provide me with enough coverage. The blush and bronzer completed the look and both are great to add a summer glow.

Overall, I really liked the products. The sizes of the samples were great and the products are of high quality. In the future, I would consider purchasing the cream eyeshadow and/or the lip gloss. I do think the prices are a bit high for what I would prefer to pay.